home Astrology The Marxist concept of man comes from. Anthropological concept of Marxism

The Marxist concept of man comes from. Anthropological concept of Marxism

Marxist concept man began to take shape in the second half of the 19th century in the works Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which came from labor theory of anthroposociogenesis. The problem of the nature (origin) of man was solved on the basis Darwin's theory of evolution and ideas about the natural-historical process of human formation in an emerging society. The emergence of human consciousness occurred on the basis of labor activity and in connection with the development of language.

The basic concepts of the Marxist concept of man include:

“person”, “individual”, “personality”, “individuality”.

Human - this is the generic name of a thinking being (Homo sapiens - reasonable man). This concept indicates the differences between humans and animals: the presence of consciousness, the possession of articulate speech (language), the manufacture of tools, responsibility for one’s actions, etc.

Man has a biosocial nature, because, on the one hand, he came out of the animal world, on the other, he was formed in society; it has a biological, bodily organization and a social (public) essence. The debate about which principle - biological or social - is decisive in the life of a human being has continued among philosophers and scientists for almost two centuries.

K. Marx in his work “Theses on Feuerbach” said: “...The essence of man...is the totality of all social relations.”

From the point of view of Marxism, social traits are dominant in man, not biological, and consciousness is dominant, not the unconscious.

Individual- this is a person as a single representative of the human race. This concept does not include the features of real human life.

Personality - this is a specific person with his inherent social and individual traits.

The character of an individual is mainly determined by the social environment: what society is like, so is the personality.

Individuality – These are those specific features that are inherent in a given person that distinguish him from other people.

became widespread in Soviet philosophy activity approach to understanding the human personality (psychologist A.N. Leontiev).

The essence of this approach is that personality is formed and manifested in various spheres of activity: material and production, socio-political, spiritual, etc. Social activity is a general, universal characteristic of personality. The wealth of a personality appears as the wealth of its actual relationships. Under the conditions of a totalitarian system, the Marxist theory of man encountered the contradictions of real socialism.

The social ideal of Marxism is communist society, in which “the free development of everyone is a condition for the free development of all.” The goal of this society: the removal of all forms of alienation of a person, the emancipation of his essential forces, maximum self-realization of a person, the comprehensive harmonious development of a person’s abilities for the benefit of the whole society (K. Marx).

The restructuring of Soviet society led to the abandonment of the Marxist concept of man as a state doctrine.

Marxist concept of "alienation"

Based on the analysis of the “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts” of K. Marx, the author derives his own classification of the various aspects of the “alienation” phenomenon. At the end of the article, a statement is given of the features and specifics of alienation in modern capitalist society (in the world and in Russia).

The problem of alienation is insufficiently developed and therefore controversial in modern Marxist literature, so certain provisions of the article may be controversial and require further discussion. In general, the material will help you get a systematically presented view of alienation and, most importantly, think about this problem. What is alienation? How is it different from exploitation? What types and aspects of alienation can be identified? Private property: a source of alienation or a guarantee of overcoming it? What are the features of alienation in Soviet and modern society? How to overcome the alienation of labor? These and other questions are answered in the article by Roman Osin.

Introduction

One of the attributes of modern (as well as any class) society is alienation. This category was often used by Marx in his early works, which allowed, on the one hand, some authors to reduce alienation to capitalist exploitation, and on the other hand, to use alienation as a kind of magic formula that in itself should explain everything. At the same time, of course, without highlighting clear criteria for the phenomenon of alienation itself.

In the article we will consider the concept of the category of alienation, its types and sides, as well as the features of its manifestation in modern capitalist society and ways to overcome it.

Alienation of labor: Marx's formulation of the question

Speaking about the category of “alienation”, our attention is drawn to the “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts” written by the young Marx in 1844. Despite the rough nature of these manuscripts, in them Marx essentially gave a systematic presentation of his understanding of the phenomenon of “alienation,” laying the methodological foundations from which one can build today when studying this phenomenon. In his analysis, Marx placed the focus not on the moral and ethical, but on the socio-economic aspect of alienation. He proceeded from the fact that man is a social being, and therefore realizes himself in practical (primarily labor) activity. Therefore, the problem of alienation should not be posed “in general,” but as a problem of alienated labor. It is alienated labor that is the side of alienation that Marx considered the main one and from which he derived particular manifestations of alienation (alienation of the results and process of labor, alienation of man from man in everyday life, alienation of the social system from man, etc.).

In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Marx showed exactly what alienated labor consists of. Expanding on this issue, Marx wrote: “Labor is for the worker something external, not belonging to his essence; in that in his work he does not affirm himself, but denies, feels not happy, but unhappy, does not freely develop his physical and spiritual energy, but exhausts his physical nature and destroys his spiritual strength. Therefore, the worker only feels like himself outside of work, and in the process of work he feels cut off from himself. He is at home when he is not working; and when he works, he is no longer at home. Because of this, his work is not voluntary, but forced; this is forced labor. This is not the satisfaction of the need for labor, but only a means to satisfy all other needs, but not the need for labor. The alienation of labor is clearly reflected in the fact that as soon as physical or other coercion to work ceases, people flee from labor like the plague. External labor, labor in the process of which a person alienates himself, is self-sacrifice, self-torture. And, finally, the external character of labor is manifested for the worker in the fact that this labor does not belong to him, but to another, and in the process of labor he himself belongs not to himself, but to another.”

This quote contains several important points, which we will explain below.

Firstly, “labor is for the worker something external, not belonging to his essence." Here we are talking about the alienation of labor as a process, not only taken from the side of the result, but also taken from the side of the mechanism for realizing the ability to work. Developing the idea, Marx shows that we are talking not only about the fact that labor that creates a product for another person becomes alien due to exploitation, but also about the exhausting nature of labor itself, regardless of who appropriates its results. The exhausting nature of work does not bring joy, does not develop the worker, but only takes away his strength for life. In this work, the worker does not realize himself as a social being, but spends his energy and time “nowhere”, thereby alienating not only labor, but also the worker’s life time, which he spends in the labor process. This leads to the question of the necessary level of development of the productive forces to realize the real potential of social ownership of the means of production under socialism.

Secondly, it is completely natural that such work is not actually a manifestation of human essence. Marx here directly derives the psychological negative attitude towards work from the technical, technological and social character labor, which makes this work unbearable: “therefore, the worker only feels like himself outside of work, and in the process of work he feels cut off from himself. He is at home when he is not working; and when he works, he is no longer at home.” Aversion to work is caused by two aspects: social alienation associated with the appropriation of the employee’s labor results by another entity, and technical and technological alienation, associated with an insufficient level of development of productive forces in order to make work exciting, bringing joy to the worker, and not exhaustion of the body. In the first case, working for another person, the employee does not feel involved in the results of labor, and therefore feels an aversion to work, seeing in it only a way to maintain his existence (hence the principle that wages are the main goal of labor). In the second case, the employee does not have the opportunity to enjoy work due to its very nature, which is inextricably linked with routine functions that are physically and psychologically exhausting for the body. Such work, even in the absence of capitalist exploitation, nevertheless causes psychological disgust in the worker, who continues to perceive it as “lost time.” Here Marx also talks about the need for labor, which is not satisfied by alienated labor. The very formulation of the question of the need for labor seems to be the most important from a methodological point of view. Today many people believe that man is by “nature” lazy. By the way, the same idea was expressed by L.D. Trotsky, who seemed to position himself as a Marxist, nevertheless wrote the following about hard work: “as a general rule, a person strives to evade work. Hard work is not an innate trait: it is created by economic pressure and social education. We can say that man is a rather lazy animal."

The explanation of “natural laziness” allows the ruling classes, on the one hand, to justify their rule (they say, without us, the lazy masses will ruin everything), and on the other hand, to instill in the working people the idea that a society in which labor would be the highest human need, because it, they say, is a “utopia” and does not correspond to “human nature.” Nevertheless, practice shows that by nature the need for work is immanently inherent in man, since the very formation of a person as a person, as a thinking being, is associated with labor activity. Of course, the very nature of work and its social conditions play an important role here. Monotonous, hard physical work is unlikely to turn into a vital need on its own. In the same way, creative work performed under conditions of exploitation of man by man significantly narrows its “creative” component. At the same time, even in the conditions of capitalism, one can often observe people of creative professions (scientists, teachers, engineers and other representatives of “universal labor”) who consider work not only as a way to earn money. Moreover, many are engaged in two types of labor: one labor as a way to survive (official work), and the other labor as a way of activity “for the soul,” which is the meaning of human life. Examples include socially active workers who spend the lion's share of their free time on educational activities, trade union struggle, party work and other types of “universal labor”.

Thirdly, Marx emphasizes “and finally, the external character of labor is manifested for the worker in the fact that this labor does not belong to him, but to another, and in the process of labor he himself belongs not to himself, but to another.” We draw attention to the fact that Marx only at the end brought out the social alienation of the results of labor, showing that a worker, producing a product of labor for another person, thus alienates his activity and his human essence, his life to this person. That is, a person cannot help but be alienated if he works for another person. At the same time, Marx associates the alienation of labor not only with the social class aspect, but also with the material conditions that make class alienation possible. Insufficient consideration of this point does not allow us to sufficiently understand the essence of alienation, as well as its specificity in Soviet society.

Marx linked category alienation with the dependence of man on the external manifestations of social elements, first of all, with the externally imposed division of labor into mental and physical, private property and the exploitation of man by man. In other words alienation- this is a process in which the result of a person’s activity, like his activity itself, and with it the entire system of social relations become beyond the control of a person, exist and develop according to their own logic, and dominate a person. Overcoming social and technical-technological alienation is the process of social liberation of a person.

Types and parties of alienation

Marx identified several types of alienation: alienated labor (the main type), alienated product of labor, alienation of people from each other, alienation of social life (or alienation of “labour activity”). And in each of these types of alienation, both technical (technical-technological), socio-economic, and psychological aspects of alienation are manifested. But in addition to the types of alienation, which show what exactly is alienated from a person, I think it is legitimate to highlight its sides, which would reflect the reasons for alienation.

Summarizing the above provisions of Marx, we came to the conclusion that in the phenomenon of alienation we can distinguish three closely interconnected sides: the technical and technological side (hereinafter we will refer to this side as “technical alienation”), the social (socio-economic and social -political) and psychological.

Technical and technological side alienation (technical alienation) is associated, first of all, with the dominance of circumstances over a person without a direct connection with exploitation. The basis of this aspect of alienation is the level of development of productive forces insufficient for social liberation, as well as technical, technological and organizational limitations of production relations. Technical alienation, as we will show below, can exist, in a certain sense, even in the absence of direct exploitation of man by man as a consequence of the limited capabilities of the productive forces of society. The preservation of technical alienation is associated, for the most part, not with relations between people, but with the unwillingness of society to move into a new technical and technological (and therefore socio-economic) quality - the quality of freedom from the quality of necessity. That is, we have here the unpreparedness of human society for socio-economic conditions under which all its members will be free not only from exploitation, but will also receive real material conditions for comprehensive development. In conditions of technical alienation, we are dealing with the domination over a person of social forces still unknown to him, which appear to him as “unknown” and “uncontrollable.” This side of alienation extends to the technical, technological and organizational aspects of production relations, but does not always affect the purely social side, which is associated with the property level of production relations. The long-term preservation of technical alienation significantly complicates the development of the need for labor and contributes to a negative attitude towards the labor process among a significant part of society. This same technical alienation contributes to the formation of conditions under which the social and psychological side of alienation is possible. The Soviet Union faced this problem, in which socialism was forced to build on a technical and technological basis that was inadequate to it, which inevitably led to a number of contradictory trends that gave rise to the existence of alienation, although exploitation in the capitalist sense of the word no longer existed.

The social side of alienation associated with the alienation of labor as a result of social relations between people, when one group of people appropriates products produced by other people. In the social aspect of alienation, it is right to distinguish two types: social-class (or socio-economic) and socio-political alienation .

Socio-economic alienation concerns, first of all, production relations between people, based on the dominance of private ownership of the means of production and the appropriation of the results of social labor by private owners. Here we are dealing with a product of labor that is appropriated not by the person who produced it, but by the one who has private ownership of the means of production and thus alienates for his own benefit a product that was not produced by him. Along with the alienation of the product, the labor process itself, which acts as the antithesis of man, is also alienated. The worker, starting to perform his labor functions, understands that the results of his efforts will not be appropriated by him, that his work will only allow him not to die of hunger. Along with labor, the entire system of social relations is alienated from a person ( Marx called this “tribal alienation”), in which it has little influence. Here we are also dealing with the alienation of social and political institutions, the alienation of cultural achievements as a result of the alienation of labor. This type of alienation, according to Marx, is a direct consequence of private property and the exploitation of man by man.

The social side of alienation can cause technical and technological alienation. So, for example, the desire to obtain unlimited profits pushes the owners of the means of production to save on providing decent working conditions for workers, using low-skilled cheap labor, instead of developing automation of the production process, etc.

The socio-political side of alienation directly follows from the socio-economic one and is connected with the fact that since the product of labor is appropriated not by the worker himself, but by those for whom he works, then the political functions of management are also alienated from the person and are appropriated by representatives of the ruling class. On the other hand, a simple person simply does not have the physical ability to carry out political functions, since the lion's share of his time is absorbed by work (alienated labor). By proclaiming formal political rights and freedoms, enshrining them in constitutions and declarations, a society based on private property relations cannot create material conditions for the genuine involvement of all workers in government. Political practice shows that, despite the formal equality of everyone before the law, we are dealing with practical inequality.

A separate manifestation of political alienation is the institution of representation. According to some political scientists, any delegation of powers in itself already carries the danger of alienation. In our opinion, delegation is different from delegation. In conditions of democratic control by organized workers over people's representatives, mechanisms for recalling deputies, political alienation is significantly reduced and, ultimately, removed. If a member of the labor collective, nominated to a representative body of power, feels responsible to his voters, knows that if he does not perform his duties properly, he can be recalled at any time, there can be no talk of any alienation. It’s a different matter when “servants of the people” turn into “masters over the people”, when, in conditions of a poorly developed level of self-organization of workers and control on their part, state power turns into a political force not controlled by society, for which corporate interests are placed above public ones. Here the institution of representation turns into the strongest element of political alienation, playing only a decorative, formal role in serving the political elite and giving legitimacy to the power of the ruling class.

Here we come close to the psychological side of the phenomenon of alienation, since, strictly speaking, any alienation passes through a person’s “head” and manifests itself in a person’s attitude to social life.

Psychological side of alienation is expressed in a person’s relationship to society as not one’s own, but someone else’s. Often, researchers have studied this particular aspect of alienation as the main one. From our point of view, it is legitimate to consider the psychological side of alienation, although significant, but still derived from the technical, technological and socio-economic aspects.

The psychological side of alienation, however, is the most diverse, as it reflects political, socio-economic and cultural-ideological aspects. Thus, psychological alienation can manifest itself as a person’s alienation from himself, as a religious alienation, as a result of which a person seeks salvation in another world and, thereby, moves away from the problems of the world that really exists. There are other diverse manifestations of the psychological side of alienation, which we will not consider in detail within the framework of this study. One way or another, any alienation takes on a psychological aspect.

Let us summarize that the individual, being alienated from the results of his labor and from the labor process itself, realizing this, ceases to treat the society around him as his own. The market element with the cult of competition extends this struggle not only to representatives of the ruling classes, but also to the poor strata of society, as a result of which we can observe indifference and reluctance to help each other, distrust, suspicion, envy, etc. In such a situation, every man for himself and a competitor to the other.

Another component of the issue is related to the fact that, not having the time and energy to participate in political life, workers themselves sometimes “voluntarily” abandon it, entrusting political functions to “professionals.” Erich Fromm described this phenomenon in sufficient detail in his work “Flight from Freedom.” We see an example of such “flight” in modern Russia, where citizens often rely not on their own struggle for their rights, but on a “strong hand” that will “arrange everything” and “do everything.” More disastrous examples of “flight” were given to us by fascist Germany, where a significant part of the citizens voluntarily agreed to obey the Fuhrer. This also includes false forms of consciousness. First of all, these are religious and other anti-scientific forms of worldview, reactionary ideologies caused by a person’s alienation from political and philosophical knowledge. Under such conditions, people can quite consciously fight and even achieve certain successes in the struggle for the ideas that have developed in their minds about the best structure of society, while these ideas themselves do not correspond to the interests of those who fight for them. An illustrative example is the situation of miners, who in the late 1980s fought for the secession of the RSFSR from the USSR, for greater economic independence of enterprises, and the weakening of labor discipline. They believed that these measures would lead to an improvement in their lives. However, the result, as we know, was mass disenfranchisement and a deterioration in their financial situation, but the demands were met! Lenta Ru provides interesting memories of participants in those strikes, which well illustrate alienation as a distorted consciousness. Let us give them:

“Ironically, almost all the demands of the miners and their leaders were fulfilled,” recalls Aman Tuleyev. And today we are reaping the fruits of the miners' strikes of 1989-1991. The strikers demanded Russia's exit from the USSR - they received the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. In the economic sphere: did you achieve independence for coal industry enterprises? Did they demand that mines and open-pit mines be allowed to set their own production standards? We've achieved it! Did you insist on canceling the disciplinary statute and liquidating the state mining and technical inspection? They say they interfere with work. Done! They demanded that miners not be checked or felt for the presence of tobacco, lighters, or matches before going down into the mine face? Now they don’t check.”

“We fought for socialism with a human face,” explains Valentin Kopasov, in the 1980s, the head of the Tsentralnaya mine site, who became a member of the leadership of the Vorkuta strike committee. - And we ran into the “murlo”, the vile “muzzle” of capitalism. Then show the guys a picture from 2016 - is that what you want? I'm sure many would want to stay in 1989. The worker was more protected, more respected, labor was held in high esteem. If they knew what it would lead to, they would stay away from strike activities.”

We have seen the light... It’s a pity, but the price of such an “epiphany” is the fate of socialism. However, even a negative lesson from history is also a lesson, the main thing is that it is learned in the coming class battles.

The attitude towards public property in the USSR as “nobody’s” on the part of a certain part of the population is also a manifestation of the psychological side of alienation as a reflection of socio-economic alienation that has not been completely overcome. In general, the psychological aspect of alienation has been examined in sufficient detail in Western (especially neo-Marxist) and domestic literature.

At the same time, recognizing the dependence of the psychological side of alienation on socio-economic factors, one cannot completely deny a certain independence of the psychological perception of alienation. Psychological alienation does not always literally copy social and technical alienation. So, for example, there are known cases from history when people in difficult conditions for themselves, with primitive tools of labor, were not psychologically alienated from the fruits of their activity, but felt pride and involvement in the process. An example of this is the famous subbotnik, to whom Lenin dedicated his famous article “The Great Initiative.” Similar examples are the heroic labor exploits of rear workers during the Great Patriotic War, who, despite routine labor functions and enormous wear and tear on physical strength, did not psychologically feel alienated from the product they produced, since they understood their involvement in the cause of victory.

On the other hand, we can very often observe people who live in comfortable conditions, work in cozy offices, but do not feel involved in the common cause, experience a strong psychological feeling of depression and alienation from the process and result of their work, despite the technical equipment of their jobs and relatively high wages. Spiritual slavery, a feeling of loneliness and lack of prospects for personal growth are the source of alienation for a person who is relatively well off financially, but poor spiritually.

I would also like to say something about the alienation of people from each other. Here, the determining role is played by precisely those social relations in which the individual’s life activities take place. I still remember the times when houses had only wooden doors, which in Soviet times were not always locked, people were open to each other. And it was precisely because of the social polarization of the population, the imposition of general competition between everyone and everyone, and, frankly speaking, because of the transition to capitalism, that it became possible for each person to withdraw into himself, to be protected from the outside world with the help of numerous iron doors, high fences, etc. People sometimes don’t know their neighbors on the floor, let alone their neighbors in the hallway, which was simply unthinkable in Soviet times. Living, seemingly in relative comfort, the degree of alienation between people is much higher than in the conditions of everyday difficulties of the beginning of the Soviet period, war and post-war times. And here the big question arises: who is more subject to alienation: a modern relatively wealthy individualist-everyman in a cozy Moscow apartment or a simple worker from a communal apartment, living a single life with the team and feeling his involvement in the cause of building socialism. And here the technical and technological level may be higher in the first case, while the degree of alienation is certainly higher in the second, since the technical and technological level, taken separately from socio-economic and political relations, does not in itself lead to overcoming alienation.

In the conditions of capitalism, it is also interesting to consider that alienation from labor applies not only to hired workers who alienate their labor in favor of other people, but also to the idle consumer who lives only off the labor of others. Such an individual will never understand the positive emotions that the labor process can bring, since he is alienated from labor as a process of self-development of the human personality, as a process of a person’s growth over himself, his comprehensive development and transformation. Thus, under capitalism, the alienation of labor is total in nature and applies to all members of society.

It is worth noting that in modern literature, the Marxist approach, according to which alienation is inextricably linked with the dominance of private ownership of the means of production, is shared by only some researchers, while some researchers of the non-Marxist tradition, on the contrary, associate alienation with the absence of such, believing that “socialization means of production, their politicization, “nationalization”, depersonalization, alienation from individual, real people, also overcomes and eliminates the figure of the individual person in the economic sphere, just as the system and regime of the dictatorship of the proletariat - in the political sphere, the monopoly dominance of the communist party ideology - in the sphere spiritual life, etc.” From the point of view of this group of researchers, “the entire history of the human race has confirmed that property that serves man is private property. Only private property... gives its owner the most extensive rights.” Private property, as Friedman Milton writes, “is the source of freedom.” Socialism, according to representatives of this trend, is “the road to slavery.”

Indeed, it is difficult to disagree with the position that private property “gives its owner the greatest rights”; the only problem is that the owners of private property, as a rule, are a smaller part of the population (and do not always receive this property through their labor) , while the majority are alienated from this very property. And these are not just Marxist conclusions. Thus, it was revealed that in the world The rich 1% own half of the world's wealth. In the same time The poorest half of the world's population owns only 1% of the world's wealth. In 2015, wealth 62 richest people planet is equal to the property of the poorest half of humanity - 3.6 billion people. In 2010, only 388 super-rich people could equal half of humanity. Moreover, over the past 5 years, the wealth of the poorest half of humanity decreased per trillion dollars - by 41%. Wealth of the 62 fattest rich people has grown for the same period by 44%- more than half a trillion dollars.

Alienation through the prism of changing socio-economic formations

The history of the development of society appears in the form of a gradual removal of various forms of human dependence, and, consequently, various forms of his alienation from the product and process of labor ( however, this process is by no means linear in nature and is accompanied by many zigzags, ebbs and flows).

Thus, in primitive society, man was completely suppressed by nature and, accordingly, was deprived of understanding many processes of existence, which gave rise to the endowment of natural phenomena with divine traits. At this time, one can state the emergence of the first psychological forms of human alienation from cognitive activity through the deification of certain natural processes unknown to him at that time.

Slave and feudal modes of production led to social alienation associated with the exploitation of man by man. Here alienation was associated with personal dependence (in the slave system, complete personal subordination) of the worker from the master, that is, the alienation of the person’s personality, as well as the alienation of the results of his work in favor of the master. These methods of production (especially slavery) gave us an example of the complete suppression of the individual, the alienation of not only the product of labor, but also human freedom as such.

Capitalism was able to partially overcome the alienation of the human person, making everyone formally equal and personally free. But the acquisition of personal freedom ( the capitalist, unlike the feudal lord, could not sell the proletarian or kill him, which a slave owner could do to a slave) did not solve the problem of removing alienation. The preservation of the economic dependence of a person deprived of ownership of the means of production (the proletarian) from the owner of the means of production (the bourgeois) led to the preservation of the alienation of labor, which in the new conditions meant the alienation of labor from the proletarian in favor of the capitalist.

Attempts at communist construction in the USSR significantly overcame the socio-economic side of alienation, however, due to the insufficient development of productive forces to transform society on such a radical basis, they could not completely put an end to the technical and technological side of alienation (the high prevalence of heavy manual labor in the USSR did not play a role here last role). Of course, this could not but lead to relapses of not only technical and technological, but also social alienation in the USSR. In general, a distinctive feature of alienation in Soviet society is that it was not associated with exploitation and private ownership of the means of production, but resulted from technical and technological unpreparedness for socialism, to overcome which required the exertion of all forces and the partial curtailment of Soviet democracy. The high share of heavy manual labor (about 40%) also played an important role in alienation. This, by the way, once again shows that alienation is not removed with the overcoming of the exploitation of man by man and the establishment of public property in the form of formal socialization (mediated by the state apparatus), but requires progress towards real socialization. On the other hand, it is important to see the difference between technical and technological alienation under capitalism and under socialism. So, even under capitalism, Marx emphasized that machine technology makes a person dependent on capital. This is what Marx called real the subordination of labor to capital, when the worker can no longer find any other occupation for himself except to be appendage cars. Under socialism, the machine makes it possible to shorten the working day and contributes to the development of all-round abilities of the individual, his liberation. The same applies to all technical progress, which under capitalism very often acts as an additional factor of alienation, a tool for enslaving the individual, and under socialism becomes a condition for overcoming alienation in all its forms. What are the so-called “information technologies” worth, which, on the one hand, allow for universal access to knowledge, but under capitalist conditions are actively used to “brainwash” the population. And here we again discover that to overcome alienation, it is not enough to simply develop productive forces, as supporters of the theory of “post-industrial society” believe; fundamental changes in production relations are also necessary.

If we talk in general about socialism as the lowest phase of communism, then alienation persists there too, due to the specifics of distribution “according to labor.” Firstly, the principle “according to work” preserves a certain inequality of people among themselves, and this is associated not only with inequality arising from the unequal abilities of people, but also from the inequality of living conditions. After all, if we imagine a person with a large family and someone who lives alone, then with the same abilities, their real earnings will not be the same. A person with a large family will, as it were, alienate part of his labor to support his family and, thus, be in a worse position. Secondly, the “according to work” principle creates another problem, namely the problem of determining the measure of labor. How to calculate which work is more useful for society and which is less useful? And, therefore, who should be paid more: a person engaged in scientific or pedagogical work, without which the training of new specialists is unthinkable, or a worker at a factory who produces the most important means of production for the country of socialism and spends much more physical strength, and, therefore, more exhausting organism? And here, too, not everything is clear, because in the Soviet Union there was a problem of labor motivation, which consisted in the fact that workers often lacked the incentive to increase their level of education and qualifications due to the relatively high level of wages, which almost exceeded the level of wages engineers and employees. This significantly reduced incentives for advanced training. Moreover, as the Soviet sociologist M.N. Rutkevich noted, “in many cases, workers who have received a technician (or engineer) diploma refuse to accept the offer to move to the position of foreman and other engineering positions for financial reasons.” And this is also a problem that requires its solution under socialism and gives rise, within certain limits, to the preservation of alienation.

Alienation in modern society

In the modern capitalist world, alienation not only persists, but also intensifies. With the collapse of the USSR, in our country, and throughout the world, the social side of alienation again began to dominate (in Western countries they began to curtail the so-called “welfare state” created in order to counter the revolutionary threat), that is, the alienation of labor, both from its results and from the process itself, with all the ensuing consequences both in the political sphere and in a person’s psychological attitude to his activity. Despite the technical and technological capabilities of significantly eliminating alienation, under the capitalist system these achievements are used for directly opposite purposes. Thus, the information capabilities of the so-called “post-industrial society” actually turn into total information processing of the population in favor of one or another political sentiment of the power elite, total surveillance of workers, and invisible censorship in the media. All this is associated with the revival of extremely reactionary forms of social consciousness, which is most clearly demonstrated by the example of the replacement of the scientific picture of the world with all sorts of irrational forms of social consciousness. The same applies to the reincarnation of the most reactionary and misanthropic forms of fascist and neo-Nazi ideologies, intensively fueled by big capital both materially and informationally.

In modern society, the so-called “self-alienation” from the political sphere or, as E. Fromm called this phenomenon, “flight from freedom” makes itself felt with particular force. True, this “flight” is different from the flight that happened in Nazi Germany. There, people voluntarily submitted to the dictatorship, while being aware of the very fact of its existence; in modern society, many still need to prove that any government is a dictatorship of the ruling class. A fairly large number of our compatriots, living in relatively prosperous conditions in large cities (primarily this applies to Moscow and St. Petersburg), are plunged into the routine of their problems and almost do not understand (and what is saddest of all, do not want to understand) the political processes of modern society. Therefore, being actual “slaves”, they themselves rejoice in their “chains”, mistaking them for “freedom”. It is clear that there is no question of any mass struggle for socio-economic, and certainly not political, rights here; the protest takes the form of local outbreaks, which are easily suppressed by the centralized power of big capital. It must be said that in Western countries the situation is somewhat different. There, protest activity is stronger, and the level of self-organization is much higher than in Russia. And yet, political alienation is no less evident there than in the Russian Federation. After all, despite all the power of the institutions of self-organization of workers in those countries, the struggle there is not for fundamental changes and not for the replacement of one social formation for another, but for private concessions by the government. People are ready to fight for little, but not everyone yet understands the need for radical, revolutionary changes in the very foundations of bourgeois society.

The specificity of modern alienation lies in the social component, in the position of man, his instability, his dependence on external circumstances, and not in pure poverty, although the latter has not disappeared either. In this regard, the technical and technological side of alienation here acts as a product and consequence of the social one, in contrast to the USSR, where social alienation was a consequence of the technical. It is the desire to acquire more profit that leads the capitalist to the desire to save on working conditions, to hire visiting workers who, due to their hopeless situation, agree to lower wages, instead of introducing new technologies into production, improving working conditions, etc.

Overcoming alienation means the transition from the “realm of necessity” to the “realm of freedom”, but this is impossible without a transition from one socio-economic formation to another - a more progressive one (without a transition from capitalism to communism). It is precisely as a transition from one (more reactionary) to another (more progressive) socio-economic formation, accompanied by a transfer of power from one class to another (more progressive), that a social revolution is understood in Marxism, which should end in the complete victory of the new social order. Such a social system, representing an alternative, was supposed to be socialism (and in the future, communism). It is communism, as a society based on the conscious management of social processes, not knowing the exploitation of man by man, using technical progress to expand the material and cultural capabilities of man, that will put an end to all forms of alienation. After all, even if a contradiction is discovered, a society armed with knowledge, a consciously organized society, will be able to resolve them without much difficulty, eliminating the basis of alienation of any kind - the dominance of circumstances over a person. It is communism as a system in which a person is the master of his life, a person dominates circumstances and will be able to completely overcome the phenomenon of alienation.

But it is obvious that the path to such a society does not lie through “recommendations to the government and the President,” but through the constant class struggle of the working people and their self-organization in this struggle. Only the working masses and, first of all, the proletariat (hired workers of physical and mental labor, deprived of ownership of the means of production), organized as a political subject (alas, today the proletariat as an independent political subject is almost absent) can bring the end of capitalism closer through their struggle. Currently, the path to overcoming alienation may be the mass involvement of workers in the social-class struggle in all its forms (economic, ideological and political). Alas, today, the proletariat lacks its own class politics, independent of the bourgeoisie of one sort or another. After all, a person who shuns political life “of his own free will” is doubly alienated. A person who has realized the need to fight for his rights, even while remaining in a difficult economic situation, while remaining alienated from the results of his labor, takes a step towards overcoming his self-alienation (“escape from freedom”), a step towards building a classless society, a step from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. Hence, it seems obvious that in modern capitalist society the path to overcoming alienation lies not through “internal self-liberation” or “revolution of consciousness” (although this is also important), and certainly not through “constructive wishes to the authorities,” but through the practical class struggle of the proletariat in in all its forms. It is from such a struggle that the revolutionary transformative road from the prehistory of mankind to its true history - communist society - is formed.

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1. Formation of Marxist philosophy

2. Basic ideas of the philosophy of Marxism

3. The concept of man in Marxist philosophy

Bibliography

1. Formation and development of Marxist philosophy, its characteristic features

Marxist philosophy arose in the 40s of the 19th century. The prerequisites for its creation are divided into those that emerged during the development of social existence, and those that appeared during the development of social consciousness.

The socio-economic and class-political prerequisites for the formation of the philosophy of Marxism are contained in the peculiarities of the development of Europe in the first half of the 19th century. The discrepancy between the production relations of capitalism and the nature of the productive forces was manifested in the economic crisis of 1825. The antagonistic contradiction between labor and capital was revealed in the actions of the working class: in the uprisings of French workers in Lyon (1831 and 1834), Silesian weavers in Germany (1844), in the development of the Chartist movement in England (30-40s of the 19th century). A need arose for a theory capable of revealing the essence and prospects of social development, serving as a means of building a society free from capitalist exploitation, a means of transforming social structures. What was required was a scientific generalization of the experience of the class struggle of the proletariat, the development of its strategy and tactics.

The Marxist concept of society and social relations, created as a result of understanding the lessons of socio-political movements, developed in conjunction with the formation of a new worldview. The formation of such a worldview required setting tasks for the assimilation and processing of everything valuable that was in the scientific thought of that era.

The natural scientific prerequisites for the formation of Marxist philosophy include a number of discoveries, starting with the cosmogonic theory of Immanuel Kant in 1755. The most important for identifying the dialectics of nature were:

1) the discovery of the law of conservation and transformation of energy (it turned out that mechanical and thermal motion, thermal and chemical, etc. are not separated from each other, but interconnected);

2) the creation of a cellular theory that revealed connections between all organic systems and outlined connections with inorganic formations (the reproduction of crystals and their structure at that time seemed very close to cells);

3) the formation of the evolutionary concept of the organic world by J.-B. Lamarck and especially Charles Darwin; it showed the connection of organic species and their upward development based on contradictions.

The social-scientific, theoretical prerequisites for the emergence of Marxism are as follows: classical English political economy (the teachings of A. Smith and D. Ricardo), French utopian socialism (C.A. Saint-Simon, R. Owen, C. Fourier), French history of the Restoration period ( F.P.G. Guizot, J.N.O. Thierry and others); in the works of the latter, for the first time, an idea of classes and class struggle in society was given.

The philosophical prerequisites were French materialism of the second half of the 18th century. and German classical philosophy represented by the dialectician Hegel (1770-1831) and the anthropological materialist L. Feuerbach (1804-1872).

Important milestones on the path to the formation of Marxist philosophy were the works of K. Marx “On the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law” (1843), “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts” (1844), the book “The Holy Family” created together with F. Engels (1845) and written by K. . Marx “Theses on Feuerbach” (1845); in 1845-1846 K. Marx, together with F. Engels, prepared the manuscript “German Ideology”, and in 1847 K. Marx wrote the book “The Poverty of Philosophy”. Subsequent works of the founders of Marxism, including “Capital” by K. Marx and “Dialectics of Nature” by F. Engels, can be considered a further development of the principles of the new philosophy and, at the same time, an application of dialectical-materialist principles to the knowledge of society and nature.

The essence of the new introduced by Marxism into philosophy can be traced along the following lines:

1) according to the functions of philosophy;

2) according to the relationship between partisanship, humanism and science;

3) on the subject of research;

4) according to the structure (composition and correlation) of the main aspects, sections of content;

5) according to the relationship between theory and method; 6) in relation to philosophy and private sciences.

The creation of Marxist philosophy also meant the establishment of a new relationship between universal and frequently scientific knowledge. The application of materialist dialectics to the reworking of the entire political economy, from its foundations - to history, to natural science, to philosophy, to the politics and tactics of the working class - this is what interests Marx and Engels most of all, this is where they contribute the most essential and most new , this is their brilliant step forward in the history of revolutionary thought.

The dialectical-materialist interpretation, being a continuation of the dialectical tradition, is aimed at establishing a close connection between these spheres of mastering reality. This is a position leading to the establishment of integrative connections between scientific philosophy and the particular sciences of nature and society. It was assumed that a close connection with the natural (as well as technical) and social sciences would allow Marxist philosophy, on the one hand, to have a positive impact on scientific progress, and on the other, to have an open wide source for its own development.

But it should be noted that, along with the noted positive aspects, Marxism has significant shortcomings in its philosophy: underestimation of the problem of man as an individual, overestimation of the class factor when analyzing its essence and economy - when considering society, a distorted idea of the law of negation (emphasis on negotiations in the process of application, and not the synthesis of all aspects of previous development), absolutization of the struggle of opposites in development (instead of the theoretical “equality” of “struggle” and “unity” of opposites), absolutization of leaps-explosions (revolutions in society) and underestimation of gradual leaps (in society - reforms ) and so on.; in practice, Marxism was characterized by a retreat from humanism and from the principle of the unity of partisanship with objectivity proclaimed by it.

2. Basic ideas of the philosophy of Marxism

There are 3 groups of basic ideas of Marx's philosophy:

1. - a combination of materialism and dialectics.

2. - dialectical-materialistic understanding of history.

3. - a new understanding of the social role of philosophy.

Marx and Engels were influenced by Feuerbach at the beginning of their careers. In 1843-1845. Marx began to move away from the influence of Feuerbach. Marx's materialism differed from Feuerbach's. The main position of the dialectical understanding of history is that social existence determines social consciousness. Social consciousness also has an active reverse impact on the social existence that gave birth to it. Social existence - the material life of society - consists of 3 elements:

1) Social production of material and spiritual goods.

2) the material condition of a person’s direct existence, not related to production (everyday life, family).

Marx combined these 2 moments and called them the production and reproduction of man as a spiritual and physical being.

3) The process of interaction between society and nature, the nature of natural conditions, the nature of interaction between nature and society. The defined element has an active influence on the defining element and vice versa.

The core of social production is the mode of production - the unity of two elements: productive forces and production relations, interconnected in a dialectical way and interacting with each other. Productive forces (means of production) consist of:

1) Man is the main productive force of society; in the unity of spiritual and physical development, man is the total worker and the main channel for the infusion of science into production,

2) Means of labor - production equipment - this is the second channel for the infusion of science into production.

3) Subject of labor.

Industrial relations consist of elements:

1) The relationship of ownership of the means of production: the relationship of exchange, distribution and consumption. They are connected by the law of correspondence of the level and nature of other forces and other relations: a certain level of other forces requires a certain level of other relations.

2) The basis of society - was considered by Marx within the framework of the entire society and in relation to any of its components.

The superstructure includes cultural institutions and organizations (institutes, schools), among them the most important element of the superstructure is the state, the oasis is the determining element, and the superstructure is the determined element.

The pinnacle of the system of provisions of dialectical knowledge is the theory of “Socio-economic formations” - this is a historically defined type of society with all its inherent features of spiritual and social life, formed on the basis of a number of modes of production:

1) Primitive communal formation.

2) Ancient formation.

3) Asian formation. -2) and -3) - Slave-owning obsh-ek. formation. 4) Feudal formation.

4) Capitalist formation,

5) Communist formation - includes 2 phases: 1) socialism and 2) communism.

The concept of formation played a large methodological role in Marxism:

Social consciousness influences social existence:

1) the relative independence of social knowledge, manifested in the lag or advance of social existence.

2) is subject to the law of continuity - previously accumulated mental material can become the reason for the takeoff of a person. consciousness with retarded o. being. A pattern emerges: each of the spheres o. consciousness has its own internal laws of development, not related to o. being.

3) during the historical process, the degree of active influence of o. consciousness on about. being increases (law of increase).

4) Culture, according to Marx, is a way of communication between people. This gives him grounds to assert that the degree of a person’s general culture can only be judged by “the extent to which another person as a person has become a need for him.” Hence Marx’s conclusion that for every person the greatest wealth “is another person.”

3. The concept of man in Marxist philosophy

Marxist philosophy presents the original concept of man. According to Marx, a person not only lives, feels, experiences, exists, but, first of all, realizes his strengths and abilities in an existence specific to him - in production activity, in labor. He is what society is like, which allows him to work in a certain way and conduct production activities. Man is distinguished by his social essence.

The concept “man” is used to characterize the universal qualities and abilities inherent in all people. Using this concept, Marxist philosophy seeks to emphasize that there is such a special historically developing community as the human race, humanity, which differs from all other material systems only in its inherent way of life.

Marxist philosophy proposes to reveal the essence of man not only as a natural biological being, but also on the basis of the concept of the social, practical, active essence of man.

From the point of view of this concept, man stood out from the animal world thanks to work. Marxist anthropology defines the beginning of such a distinction as the beginning of man's production of tools. However, this point of view needs clarification. The fact is that animals already exhibit elements of labor activity, and initial forms of making primitive tools take place. But they are used to support and as an auxiliary means of animal life. In essence, this method, based on a system of conditioned and unconditioned reflexes and instincts, can be considered a prerequisite for the transition from animal to human, but they cannot yet be considered as a human principle.

Thus, it is possible to formulate such a synthetic characteristic of a person.

Man is an animal, a corporeal being, whose life activity is based on material production. carried out in the system of social relations, a process of conscious, purposeful, transformative influence on the world and on the person himself to ensure his existence, functioning, and development.

So, Marxist philosophy affirms the existence of man as a unique material reality. But at the same time he notes that humanity as such does not exist. There are separate representatives - “individuals”.

An individual is a single representative of the human race, a specific bearer of all the psychophysiological and social traits of humanity: reason, will, needs, interests, etc.

Personality is the result of the development of an individual, the most complete embodiment of human qualities.

The use of the concepts of “individual” and “personality” in this context allows Marxist anthropology to apply a historical approach to the study of man, his nature, to consider both an individual person and humanity as a whole.

A similar process occurs in individual human development. Initially, a child is simply a biological being, a bundle of biomass, instincts and reflexes. But as he develops and assimilates social experience, the experience of humanity, he gradually turns into a human personality.

But Marxist philosophy makes a distinction between the individual and the personality not only in terms of human evolutionary development, but also as special types of human sociality.

An individual is a mass creature, that is, a person who is the bearer of stereotypes of mass consciousness and mass culture. A person who does not want and cannot stand out from the general mass of people, who does not have his own opinion, his own position. This type was dominant at the dawn of humanity, but is also widespread in modern society.

The concept of “personality” as a special social type is most often used as the opposite in its main characteristics to the concept of “individual”. A person is an autonomous person capable of opposing himself to society. Personal independence is associated with the ability to control oneself, and this, in turn, presupposes that the individual has not just consciousness, that is, thinking and will, but also self-awareness, that is, introspection, self-esteem, and self-control over one’s behavior. The self-awareness of an individual, as it develops, is transformed into a life position based on ideological attitudes and life experience.

The way to realize a life position is social activity, which is a process and a way of self-realization by a person of his essence

Marxist philosophy society

Bibliography

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